


In the Pursuit of Freedom

by Checkerbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comedy, M/M, a little more vulgar than my usual fare too, fake makeout, from nobody to nightmare, of a sort, or at least an attempt was made, probably one of the crackier things I’ve ever written, rescue romance, takes place about a decade before Inquisition, which isn’t saying much because I’m terrible at crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21569197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: A series of stories wherein Dorian and Trevelyan can’t seem to stop running into each other when they’re both young and stupid, and get up to the worst sort of mischief imaginable.(In his thirst for adventure, Dorian might have actually made a monster. Oops)
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 12





	1. Ostwick

**Author's Note:**

> I am sure the amount of people who actually mind is at least somewhere close to 0, but as a disclaimer—this is not going to fit anywhere in the logistics of anything in the Dragon Age timeline or lore, or even that of the characters in it, because this was inspired by some of the Stranger hijinks in Red Dead Redemption 2.

Alexiel’s mother had told him many times to never go into taverns or go drinking, lest he embarrass his family even further than he already did by being his normal, sober self.

She needn’t have bothered. He had made himself drunk on only one occasion in his life, and as it had ended only in his humiliation and vomiting into a particularly expensive vase, he was not eager to do so again. Still, his feet did linger somewhat as he passed the building by, a large den of mayhem and impropriety that was nonetheless quite entertaining to be witness to. Far more so than any brown-nosing party on his family’s estate, or the dreary and rigidly strict schooling of the Chantry.

The sound of someone speaking did reach his ears as he loitered, but he was so used to being ignored and so easily distracted from engaging in any kind of interaction with others that he tuned it out. That is, until the speaking grew louder and he turned with a jolt to see a very strange and finely groomed young man approaching from the tavern door with a mug in his grip.

Thankfully, whoever it was continued talking, apparently not noticing that he’d been completely and utterly ignored for the first half of his speech. “—debating over whether or not to sample this piss they’re calling ‘Ostwick’s finest ale’. Unless you’re looking to get mead. Are you? Are you a degenerate who fills your booze with honey?”

Alexiel blinked, wondering if perhaps this was someone he had already met at a party somewhere and simply forgotten. Even unfairly attractive people tended to blur together. “No, I don’t take my honey with booze.”

The man, who seemed to be tipsy already, laughed and gestured at him good-naturedly. “Quite right! You must have some sort of brains in your head. Tell me who you are so that we might get acquainted.”

Ah. No party introductions, then. He hesitated briefly. It was so unpleasant to hear people address him by his own name. “—I am of House Trevelyan.”

“Ah, a Trevelyan are you? What luck! Then that makes us cousins!”

It wasn’t that he necessarily doubted this statement—Trevelyan was a very large and expansive clan, after all, not just in Ostwick but elsewhere across the Free Marches. But he couldn’t help a dubious look entering his expression as he took in the man, with his dark and richly bronze-colored skin, perfectly sculpted cheek bones and nose, ink-drop beauty mark, and storm-grey eyes. His accent was unfamiliar, though Trevelyan processed it in his mind as simply, “exotic”. “Cousins.”

The ponce caught his expression and rolled his eyes, relenting. “Alright, well, not _first_ cousins or anything like that. Still!” A gleam of mischief took over his features, and Trevelyan felt something roil a little in his stomach. “Family helps family, is that not right? And you look an exceptionally sturdy sort. How would you like to do me a favor?”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Ah! It’s Dorian.” Dorian glared down at the ale in his hand, pointing at it accusingly. “You, you wretched thing, have appeared to rob me every last one of my manners.” Then he took another hearty draft.

“It is good to meet you, Dorian,” Trevelyan offered stiffly with a slight bow in greeting, because that was the way he had been taught to behave, the words that had been drilled into his memory. “How are you finding Ostwick?” Because he didn’t need to guess that this man wasn’t from around here.

“ _Unspeakably coarse_ , that is how I am finding it!” Dorian moaned, finishing off his drink and then throwing the cup carelessly aside to smash against the cobblestone street. “Which wouldn’t be so bad except it is also dreadfully dull.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, putting his hands behind his back so he could fidget with his wrist unseen. Most guests in Ostwick didn’t have the poor sense to besmirch its reputation so openly. “How…unfortunate?”

“Quite, yes. I’ve had to do all manner of unspeakable things just to entertain myself.” Dorian briefly put an arm over his forehead in a fashion that rather reminded Trevelyan of one of his aunts who always got the vapors. It was a significantly better look, on him. “Which leads into my problem. Here I am, fresh off the boat, with only the barest spending money to my name, when this handsome gentleman offers to buy me drinks. One thing led to another, and we ended up—” He paused, looking at Trevelyan carefully. “—Falling to distraction, as it were.”

“You mean sex?”

Dorian harrumphed. “If you insist on being so blunt.”

“That’s just my way.”

“I haven’t scandalized you, have I?”

Trevelyan frowned, growing confused again. “Would you like me to be scandalized?”

“Ha!” Dorian waved a hand, moving as though to sip from his mug only to recall at the last minute that it was in pieces on the ground. He looked down at it forlornly. “—Well, anyway, the point is that while I was so indisposed, he saw fit to pocket my birthright. –A _pendant_ worth more than the scoundrel would fetch at auction, in case you are unaware.”

It didn’t take a genius to tell where this was going (which was good, because Trevelyan had long ago come to the conclusion that he wasn’t one). “…Who was this gentleman?”

“Some oaf by the name of Hendrik.”

He blinked. “Hendrik? Hendrik Hayes?” A friend of his brother Maxwell. Though perhaps that was using the word friend a little loosely.

“—Then you know him!” Dorian brightened, slinging an arm around Trevelyan’s shoulder. He jolted then, too, looking between Dorian’s hand on one side and his face on the other. “Excellent. I knew you looked clever. Let me be frank then. My honor will not rest until the man is a pile of ash on the floor!” He seemed to remember himself after the proclamation, coughing into his fist. “But circumstances in this backwoods state forbid me from using my more clever arts to do so, meanwhile I am not, shall we say, the most adept of brawlers. Thus I am forced to beg for help like some common urchin.”

“Clever arts?” Trevelyan’s brow furrowed slightly. “What, like blades? Like an assassin?”

That merited a haughty bark, apparently. “Nothing so common.”

“Oh.” No blades? Trevelyan found himself just a bit disappointed.

Dorian continued, “My request is simple. Get me back my birthright. Beating the man senseless is optional, if you are _so_ squeamish. At which point I will be eternally grateful, indebted hundredfold, pay tribute to you for all of my days, blah blah blah. Sound good?”

This was all going much too fast for him. “I…suppose?”

“Okay! So you’ll do it, then?”

“I—uh.”

“ _Come on_ , be game. –I’ll even ask nicely. Ple—actually, no, I can’t do it. Still, you must!”

Trevelyan stared.

On the one hand. This would involve talking to someone he didn’t like. And that was never a pleasant prospect.

On the other hand. He always felt this ineffable urge to help people when they asked for it. It wasn’t that he particularly liked other human beings, or that he feared retribution of some kind if he refused. He just always felt like he was…missing out on something. Like it was content he needed to explore or a… _quest_.

“I…sure. I’ll go get your necklace back.”

“Wonderful!” Dorian let him go, finally. “But if you call it a necklace again, you are joining Hendrik in the ash pile.”

Hendrik was drinking in the tavern, because that is what he liked to do. He liked to get drunk and then go beat up on those who were smaller than himself. Unless Maxwell was around. Then they just pointed and laughed.

Trevelyan stood behind him for almost a solid minute before tapping him on the shoulder. “Hendrik.”

Hendrik twisted to look at Trevelyan, his dull brown eyes already turning red from drink, and it became clear that this wasn’t going to be a matter of just asking. “What do you want, Lexy?”

His fists clenched. “You took something from someone last night. He would like it returned.”

“What?” Hendrik spun around on his barstool, narrowing his eyes as though he couldn’t see Trevelyan properly. It’s possible he couldn’t. His eyesight was very poor. “You’re gonna have to be more specific than that. I ran into a lot of guys last—Oh! Oh, you mean the pretty boy with the nice eyes?”

Trevelyan faltered. “His name’s Dorian?”

“Whatever.”

“You,” he said, injecting a little more venom into his voice, the way he heard people do in theater, “Are a _thief_.”

“Hey! If he doesn’t want me taking his stuff he shouldn’t leave it in a pile on the floor of my room, if you know what I mean.” Trevelyan did _not_ know what he meant, but he scowled as though he did. Hendrik stood, staggering slightly before gaining his balance. Trevelyan’s fists were clenched so hard that if he wasn’t wearing gloves he might have been digging his nails into his palm, but they remained locked at his side. “I might go give it back if he does that thing with his mouth he did last ni—"

Dorian swung a stick into his side.

Hendrik sailed into a nearby table, upending all of the drinks thereon.

Dorian clapped Trevelyan cheerily on the back. “You just looked so pathetic I decided I could do this myself after all.”

Trevelyan opened his mouth to reply when the sound of angry growls came from where Hendrik had landed. Apparently, there had been people at that table who had been drinking the beer on it. Three very surly looking sailors.

Dorian’s hand lingered on his shoulder, squeezing hard as his smile widened. “Oh. Oops.”

The bartender hopped over the bar to intervene, and then the whole place just turned completely upside down.

Trevelyan largely focused on his own part, though he could hear what sounded like Dorian laughing as he fought beside him. Duck, avoid getting his lights punched out. The punch sailed through the air and smacked into someone who had come up behind him, knocking them against the bar itself and toppling some glasses. There were shouts as the poor fool’s friends hopped into the fray, and then not all of the attention was on him specifically. A man who was so large that he might have been a short, hornless Qunari charged, and plowed into the hapless bartender as Trevelyan took a quick hop-step to the left. Something like a smile twitched unstoppably over his face.

—Oh, look, there was Hendrik again, sputtering with rage and wobbling over.

Well.

Trevelyan had never liked Hendrik.

He kicked him in a particularly sensitive area, and felt a small twinge of delight as he doubled over again. Dorian took the opportunity to whack him on the back of the head, and he went down for a final time.

Dorian’s stick, now that he had a proper look at it, was extremely ostentatious and not really a stick at all. It looked more like a stave, long and resplendently polished, topped with gold-trimmed ornamentation that looked quite a lot like fire. Actually, the whole thing rather looked like--

“Is that a staff?”

“What?” Dorian glanced at the glittery, bejeweled staff in his hand. “Uh…No, no, it’s uh…a walking cane. Had it made just for me, craftsman was a hack and made it too large—come on man, don’t just stand around! Help me drag this wretch outside!”

Bemused, Trevelyan grabbed Hendrik by the legs, ducking to narrowly avoid a bottle as it sailed through the air and smashed into a woman decked out in full armor with a dress over the top. Dorian wrapped his arms up under his shoulders and soon enough they were outside of the chaos. Then the unconscious man was unceremoniously dropped to the ground with a thud.

“Now! To business!” Hendrik was wearing an overcoat, which Dorian dispatched with practice ease. “The recovery of my property!”

Someone screamed in the bar. “Shouldn’t we do something about the—"

“Blast it—where are you keeping it, you dirty little louse!?”

Trevelyan watched Dorian dig through the stunned Hendriks’ pockets, losing interest in the scuffle. “I could try?”

“There’s nothing to try!” Dorian sat up with a huff of rage as Trevelyan leaned down and experimentally swiped a hand over Hendrik’s shirt front. “He must have it in some stash somewhere, or—”

“Found it.”

Trevelyan had barely a moment to examine the birthright before it was snatched greedily from his hands. It was a sparkling assemblage of multi-colored jewels inlaid beneath a curling gold carving of a two-headed snake run through with a cool silver chain, and from the way that Dorian looked upon it you would think it contained his very lifeblood. “Thank sweet Andraste…”

Trevelyan angled a little to get a better look, lips parting just slightly. It was beautiful, the way it caught the light. He had never seen a piece of jewelry like it. “I have never seen a family crest with snakes before. Where are you from?”

“Never you mind that,” Dorian sneered. But his mood seemed to have improved significantly upon actually having it in his possession, and he added, more graciously, “Nowhere you would have heard of in your primitive, miserable little nothing country.”

“You’re welcome,” Trevelyan said.

When Dorian’s eyes glanced over at him again, they were suddenly softer. More considering. He fumbled with the chain’s clasp before swiftly getting it around his neck, slipping the pendant under his shirt and away from view. “You will have to pardon me. …I often get crass when I am in the company of my lessers. Come! I will buy you a drink, to show my appreciation for… _whatever_ it is you did in there.”

“I don’t drink,” Trevelyan said quickly.

“No?” He tilted his head, smile charming and oddly detached. “How peculiar. --Then I will buy _myself_ a drink and entertain you with my company.”

And, stupidly, Trevelyan said, “Alright.”

Dorian linked their arms together, leading him off in the direction of a tavern that was no doubt even seedier than the one that was probably still self-destructing as they spoke. “You know, you are probably the only person here that is remotely tolerable. Personally, I blame the Tevinter architecture. Gives you an entirely false impression of how exciting this place is…”

Trevelyan woke up the next morning lying next to an old, greasy cheese wheel and covered in honey and feathers.

Unlike Dorian, who was probably miles away at this point, he remembered exactly how the evening had gone.

He still couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up this way.

Or why the walls of his home felt so much smaller when he returned to it.


	2. Antiva City

Aunt Lucille had apparently liked Alexiel enough to make sure that his parents invited him along for an evening of Antivan Opera. He thought on this as he sat on the step of the servant’s entrance of the opera house, posture slumped and looking out into the winding back alley on which it opened. A light rain was misting over the city streets, giving a voice to the inexpressible gloom that permeated his being and also just in general made him feel unpleasantly _wet._

“Well well well, look who I find out moping!”

Trevelyan sat up ramrod straight, tilting his head up to see a man leaning against the wall, his back silhouetted by the setting sun and casting him in a halo of light.

“Oh, it—it’s you.”

“Me, yes! Glorious Dorian P—Just Dorian, actually, it’s more fun that way, you know my first name and I know your last name.” Dorian shook his head, blinking an awful lot. His cheeks were quite red. “Let’s cut the ‘how are you’s and let me just say that you look rather like a kicked dog. And not a Mabari either but something smaller and yappier.”

“What are you doing here in Antiva?” Trevelyan asked pointedly, ears burning.

“I,” Dorian said, putting a hand on his chest in a gesture that would have looked like the epitome of prideful posturing if he wasn’t also swaying drunkenly, “am on my way to Nevarra City to see the necropolis!”

The sound of the opera starting from inside the building became faintly audible.

“But Nevarra is the other way from Ostwick,” Trevelyan remarked patiently.

“Oh believe me, this ridiculously circuitous route would make sense to you if you had ever met my father and his _henchmen_ ,” Dorian took a swig of wine, positively crowing with delight. “I bet he’s set his own hair on fire from the impotent rage, by now.”

“You mean to tell me you are traveling Thedas without approval from your parents?”

Dorian put his hands on his hips, and very nearly fell over. “That is how one _travels_ Thedas. Retainer free and slumming with all the best-looking bumpkins. –No, don’t say it. I’m sure you think me incredibly clever.”

Trevelyan thought that Dorian was surprisingly articulate for a man who was on the verge of falling over every time he took his palm off the brick. “Is this another person you’re having sex with?” Dorian sniffed. “I’m only asking because I don’t recall that working out for you last time.”

“Oh please. I have taken _precautions_.” Dorian swayed again, and this time it was to the extent that Trevelyan got to his feet. Not to catch him, but to be able to move out of the way should he fall on him. “I was on my way back there when I was challenged by the local riff-raff into seeing who could hold the swill they call wine better. I won!”

“Con…gratulations.”

They stared at each other for one tottering second, before Dorian fell onto Trevelyan anyway, bottle slipping from his fingers and cracking, empty, on the ground. “—Don’t just stand there, be a lamb and assist me.”

He glanced back. He could hear the sound of people clapping. The show was starting in earnest, and he was missing it. “Well—”

“Splendid! I knew I could count on you, ah—uh, Trevelyan, was it?” Dorian adjusted his position so he was less laying against Trevelyan’s chest and more leaning on his shoulder, weight heavy but not nearly enough to topple him. “It isn’t far, I’m sure you will be able to make it back before curfew. Now, uh…was that right, or left?” 

Trevelyan resisted the urge to groan and roll his eyes.

As they walked, Dorian alternated between quietly trying to keep his feet steady, and making conversation. “Here I was, thinking there wouldn’t be any friendly faces around here. How have you been? The last time I saw you…I was inviting you to get a drink?”

“You mouthed off to a city guard and to avoid getting arrested you dragged me through almost every single stall in the market, caused a stampede of horses, and stole a man’s produce cart.”

“…That sounds like me, yes.”

This man he was staying with lived in a decent neighborhood, it seemed. There were people milling about on patios, chatting, relaxing. They passed close by a man and a woman who were in a heated debate about—birds or something. The man had basket of various goods, fabrics and the like. Trevelyan paused as Dorian took the basket when the man’s back was turned and upended the contents of his stomach inside. Then he placed it back, staggering once more into his support. “Antivan liquor is _terrible_ ,” he groused.

Trevelyan’s pace was quick, and there was screaming behind them. “Evidently they don’t like it much either.”

The house was alright, if a little worn down. It looked like the kind of place that had been passed down, though not nearly so grand as to make this something worth bragging over. As they approached a man came out from inside.

“Ah—you have my gratitude, messere! I can take care of my good friend from here,” he said, smiling charmingly and speaking with a thick Antivan accent as he moved in to relieve Trevelyan of his burden.

Trevelyan disliked him immensely.

Dorian waved drunkenly, eyes glittering as the fiend slipped a hand discreetly around his waist “Farewell, my good man! Thank you ever so much for the assist.”

Glancing between them for a moment, Trevelyan gave a stiff and shallow bow. He would have said _You’re welcome,_ but it seemed someone had glued his lips together. Also, he couldn’t stop glaring.

It wasn’t a long walk back all by himself—at least, not as long as it had been. But by the time he got back to the opera house, the show was half over. Obviously he couldn’t watch just the second half, so he spent the rest of the night on that step, waiting for his family to start yelling at the staff asking where he was.

A little over two hours to the second showtime at the opera and they send him out to “pick up a few emergency things”.

Trevelyan was staring at the scrap of parchment upon which Ravena had written the shopping list and wondering if this had been another prank. Rowan Rose? How the hell was he supposed to find that in this crowded—

Oh. He was on the ground and in pain. Dorian was sprawled out next to him, curling up to defend against people’s boots as they kept walking by.

“—You’re just positively everywhere, aren’t you?” he said breathlessly, clothing in disarray. He seemed significantly more sober than he had the night before, though there were faint, sleepless circles under his eyes. On some people, those screamed of late nights worrying, of anxieties over study or some great problem that had yet to be solved. On Dorian they screamed, “had a good time getting wasted and will ace my exam tomorrow because it’s too fucking easy”.

Ah, but then he didn’t look all that pleased with himself at the moment, which was a requisite for that particular interpretation. Maybe it was just his face.

“—If you could stop staring at me like a dullard and get moving, that would be appreciated.”

As they scrambled to their feet he could hear commotion from the other end of the crowd, people being pushed aside and men shouting. Before Trevelyan had time to react, Dorian’s hand was around his wrist and he was being dragged through a market a second time. Albeit, in this case there was less actual crashing into the stalls for the both of them.

“What—what in the Maker’s name is going on, Dorian?”

“Well, I—” Dorian paused to sidestep a gaggle of street performers and in the process knocked over their donation hats, coins sprinkling everywhere and rioting the crowd that had gathered to watch them. “I mentioned offhand to the man whose guest room I was staying in that my father would probably pay a price for my return back to the abominable boarding school he sent me to, and the loathsome cretin goes and blabs to some harpy matriarch with—"

They switched directions to duck down a side street, Trevelyan buffeted as he half-collided with a merchant and missing some of what Dorian said to a faint ringing in his ears.

“Never _mind_ that they don’t get a cent if I’m sent back _dead_ , not to mention the wrath of a fully-fledged—”

An arrow sailed through the air between them and stuck in the wall, Dorian moving aside to avoid his clothing catching on it with the angle that it stuck out, and in the process bumping into Trevelyan. He gave a little nervous whoop, hauling him back up with a grip on his jacket collar.

“Well, whatever. –Come, come, over here.”

Then they were stumbling down another street, coming to a stop near a small, one horse (if that scrawny, underfed thing could even be _called_ a horse) cart whose owner appeared to be in the nearby tavern. Dorian pulled them both into a crouch behind the cart.

“This is terribly exciting. --Alright, so here’s the plan,” he was saying as Trevelyan was reevaluating every life choice he had ever made since he was five years old. “We’ll take this cart, and pay the owner later—all of them are on foot, they’ll never catch up.”

He gave a start. “We? What do you mean, we? How am I involved in this at all?”

That seemed to breach something in Dorian’s thick head, and he frowned over at him. “We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

Trevelyan was just going to _ignore_ the little flare of comforting warmth that ignited in his stomach at hearing that. “No! I am supposed to be meeting my family at the opera house in two hours! I missed it my first night here because of you, and now I’ll miss it again!”

“Wait, wait—” Dorian put a hand to his mouth, clearly trying not to smile and miserably failing. “You actually _want_ to watch an Antivan opera?”

“The opera is the only—” _The only thing here I enjoy,_ he almost said. “—It’s not about the opera.”

“Come on, man! Is this that really what you want to do with your day? Have you no inclination towards adventure? Doesn’t running from vagabonds sound more like a good time?”

“ _No._ No vagabonds, no bar fights, just stomaching my family’s incessant, disruptive chatter while I try to pay attention to painted people on stage.” He cut his hand through the air for emphasis. Dorian didn’t look impressed.

“You do seem quite upset. Oh dear. –Perhaps if you help me now, later I could make it up to you.” Dorian tapped his chin thoughtfully, before his face lit up. “I could suck your cock, if you like?”

Trevelyan stared at him, mind grounding to sudden, screeching halt. _“_ What?”

Dorian tilted his head to the side. “No? Pity. I’m quite exceptional at it. You do _have_ a cock, don’t you?” He sneered. “–I only ask because you seem to be _lacking_ in the balls department.”

Face twisting in a rigid scowl, Trevelyan climbed into the cart and tugged hard on the reigns.

Dorian just barely tripped in after him before they shot off through the street.

Evidently Antivan horses were much, much faster than they looked.

Blood rushed through Trevelyan’s veins as he navigated, people and animals darting out of the way to avoid being trampled. He heard delighted laughter beside him, and felt his own heart hammering away at his ribcage. He wondered, briefly, if this was sort of what flying felt like—this heady weightlessness where even hurtling to one’s death didn’t seem relevant, because all that mattered was the rush of wind all around. All that mattered was the feeling of being completely, totally free.

Then the horse got tired.

It managed to putter to a stop without killing the both of them, though Trevelyan did hear a few people cursing at them as they climbed out, legs wobbly. Dorian braced a hand on his chest as he took a breath, fingers warm.

“ _Well._ That was certainly something.” He patted the horse on the neck appreciatively, and received in reply an indignant huff. Then it started to trot off without them, empty cart and all. “I’d like to see them catch up with us _now_.”

“I’d rather not see that. I would rather no one catch up to us,” Trevelyan said, nervously pushing past Dorian and talking a turn through a nearby archway—

\--Only to almost run into a blade pointed right at his sternum.

“Well well well. If it isn’t the _other_ boy.”

One of the mooks chasing Dorian had gotten ahead of them, it seemed.

“There’s no need for any further unpleasantness—you’re not the young man we’re after.” Something about his accent rubbed Trevelyan the wrong way, like his voice was used to gracefully flowing from one word to the next and struggling to halt correctly in Trade. “Why don’t you just tell us where your friend went, and then run on home?”

He stared, and felt something nestle under his breastbone.

“I don’t like your tone,” he said, showing teeth. His insides were trembling. “You can go fuck off.”

The man’s eyes widened, before they narrowed again in rage. He brought the sword up, taking a step forward so that when he brought the blade down again, it would crack right into Trevelyan’s skull.

Ah, well, there was a reason he didn’t generally mouth off to people.

Trevelyan kept his eyes open, because he figured his own death would be something interesting to see, and so he saw Dorian dart up to the man from the other side and whip out his “walking cane”, stabbing a blade at the end into him, knocking the air out of his lungs and halting the sword’s descent.

He pulled back with such force that the blade snapped clean off, lingering in the man’s back as he toppled over, limbs jerking. Dorian grew immediately preoccupied with swearing about his “piece of shit” walking cane that he never actually used to walk with. Trevelyan looked down at his feet, mounting horror coiling in his stomach as the man stopped moving altogether.

“You--you killed him!” he gasped.

Dorian shared his gaze briefly. “Oh. Um. Yes.”

“But _that’s murder_.”

“—Where do you think you are, Trevelyan? This is Antiva! Murder is the national pride!” He gave an exasperated snort before gesturing down at the corpse. “And this one certainly was no saint. Really, you’re getting entirely too worked up over this. He was going to kill you. And you’re not nearly insufferable enough to justify that.”

Trevelyan stared at the spreading blood, the defense more of a pale echo in his mind as his brain moved very slowly through processing what he’d just seen.

It was really quite a lovely color.

Dorian grabbed his wrist, jarring him from his thoughts. “I think we’ve well and truly lost them now. Let’s get back where everything is familiar.”

The walk back was almost entirely silent, save for the bustle of a busy day in a city winding down. People passed by without a second glance. Some woman ran past them, weeping about a missing cart and horse.

“You’ve been very quiet. –Is this about the man I killed?”

Antiva City was noisier than Ostwick—at least, the parts of it that Trevelyan frequented. And he almost never strayed from them. Until now.

“Because I’m sure he deserved it. A proper ass. Erm, probably kicked puppies. Not even for money, just because he liked doing it.”

They arrived back in the marketplace, most of the shops and stalls closing up. There would be no way to get anything on the list now, that was for sure.

“I didn’t realize it would be such a _life-changing_ event for you. Have you never seen someone die before?” Trevelyan still said nothing, and Dorian suddenly started to sound concerned. “You…haven’t. Right. Funny, ah—where I come from it’s almost a rite of adulthood, so—I suppose, keeping in mind you are _not_ from Te—my homeland, it’s probably not, erm—"

“—You know that my joining in on this nonsense was out of spite, don’t you?”

Dorian paused, jaw working a little bit unable to commit to a response. “Nh?”

“And not because of the thing you offered to do.”

The look of confusion slowly morphed into something very wicked and unfair. “Oh, is that what we’re concerned about? Me mistaking your most _noble_ intentions for more base desires?”

His face was growing hot, and Trevelyan had to take a minute to formulate his next sentence. “—I’m only saying because I wouldn’t want you to think I am—I am owed anything from you for—for all this.”

He jumped as Dorian lightly chuckled and tapped him on the nose. “Believe me. If I offer to do _anything_ with a man while sober, it’s because I find him adorable. And, perhaps, in need of a little…perking up.”

“—Maker’s breath, you are unbelievable.”

Dorian made an imperious sniff, dramatically putting a hand to his chest. “My apologies, Trevelyan, I apparently have upset you a great deal over the suggestion. I didn’t realize you were a _virgin_.”

“That’s not—” Trevelyan sputtered, eyes wildly traveling over Dorian’s appearance as though of their own accord and taking note once more of the smoothness of his skin, the cut of his figure in the casual leathers that left a bit less to the imagination than was proper. “—I am not a virgin!”

He had had sex. …With one woman. A whole two times! That counted.

The wicked sneer on Dorian’s face broke as he laughed. “Do please forgive me. I quite like to tease, and you make it so funny. –You aren’t actually a eunuch, are you? Joking about it would be terribly beastly of me. No? Good!” He did that thing again where his arm was suddenly looped around Trevelyan’s shoulder and Trevelyan had only the foggiest on how it got there. “Truly, I am most grateful for your generosity to a heathen such as myself. I think most other respectable people would have abandoned me long ago. Now please, stop doing that thing with your face. It’s really quite unbecoming.”

He had started scowling rather deeply, mostly because it was a good way to keep his nervous rictus grin from appearing on his face at this inopportune moment. The apology and everything else besides was making his insides flutter, and he couldn’t very well share _that._ Then Dorian might find out how pathetic he really was. Socially speaking.

“I did have fun,” he muttered finally, begrudgingly. “…A little bit, anyway.”

Dorian’s eyes lit up with genuine delight. “Did you? Then it was worth it. You’re such a dour young lad.” This from a man who couldn’t possibly have been a year older himself. “How would you like to have a little more fun?”

Three hours and some snacking on meat skewers later, they were making their way down a familiar path that Trevelyan had walked only the night before. The sun was starting to go down, the opera house loud and explosive as they walked by it. Trevelyan’s inner soul yearned for staged violence and light shows, but he kept going.

Halfway there they passed a winery, and Dorian darted inside for a few minutes. When he came out again he was lugging a box of liquor in his arms.

At Trevelyan’s incredulous look he protested, “It’s for _fire_.”

Soon enough they were at that familiar house, lights out and the owner clearly gone for the evening. Dorian took a quick glance around before leading them both into the yard, where a carriage waited abandoned, two horses strapped in.

“Oh blast. Do you have a knife on you? –Cut these horses free.”

Trevelyan did as he was told, and once their reigns had been carefully sliced through Dorian slapped them both on the rear to get them running.

“No sense in burning up some perfectly fine steeds,” he gave in the way of explanation. “Already did that enough on my way out of the last town, ha!”

“It’s not nice to kill horses, Dorian,” Trevelyan chided. Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“No, I’m—that’s wordplay.”

“All they do is take people from place to place. And kick them in the head. And both of those things are very noble.”

“ _Steed_ in this case is referring not to horses but to—oh fie, forget it. Let’s just do this.”

Dorian blinked and missed Trevelyan’s blink-and-you-miss-it shit-eating grin as he grabbed the bottles of liquor and headed on inside.

They started with the top floor, which was small but decently furnished. Dorian dedicated an entire brandy to soaking the sheets of the bed there. “One has to be _thorough_ ,” he said. Trevelyan focused more on the ugly carpeting, wondering out loud if this man _really_ deserved such extreme vengeance, only for Dorian to insist that yes, he _really_ did.

They then moved on to the lower floor, the sitting room, the kitchen, the library. They lingered in the library, Dorian looking over the titles, only some of them in a language that Trevelyan could read.

“Hold on. This one’s not absolute rubbish.” Dorian opened a pouch at his hip, and slipped a small book inside.

He then, horrifyingly, began to throw the rest from the shelf and douse them in liquor.

"Excellent kindling, these.”

“You’re an absolute monster,” Trevelyan moaned, choosing instead to liberally sprinkle his bottle over the imported furniture.

“Hush! We’re almost done. Best to be on our way soon.” He took a sip from what was left in the bottle, nose wrinkling in disgust. “Eugh. This is worse than Ostwick. Here, have a taste.”

Trevelyan held up a hand to ward it off. “I’m good.”

“Oh, very well.” Dorian tossed the bottle to the ground. He tugged a page from one of the loosely flung books free, and then suddenly it was on fire.

Trevelyan jumped. “—How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Dorian chuckled. “I used a match. –You do ask quite a lot of silly questions, don’t you?”

“But I didn’t see you holding any—"

_FWOOSH_

They sprinted from blue flame so hot that it nearly broiled Trevelyan’s skin, the house quickly deciding that it would like to be better acquainted with this fire and ultimately getting along with it swimmingly. Dorian pressed the last bottle into Trevelyan’s hand, a rag stuffed inside with the end also miraculously being eaten away by flame. “—This is exactly what I was talking about, this thing is lit and you don’t have any matches, Dor—”

“ _Throw_.”

He threw the bottle, and it splattered with another woosh of fire all over the horseless carriage.

The two of them watched the homestead burn. The twisting and curling of the bright flames was a better show than glittering costumes, the crackle of the fire better than any orchestra. The warmth embraced them, made them welcome.

Then they had to sprint away, as someone had summoned the guards to take care of the two horrible arsonists.

Eventually, they were back at the opera house, catching their breath.

“Perfect end to a shit day, if I do say so myself,” Dorian mused, stroking his fingers along his chin. “Pity I’ve just destroyed the only place I had to stay.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Trevelyan until just this moment. He cleared his throat. “I…would offer, but, I am here with my mother and three of my siblings, and…”

Dorian held up a hand, cutting him off. “Say no more. If your family is anything like you, I am sure they would be a delight to mess with. Regretfully I am getting the impression they are _not_ like you.”

He made a grateful sigh. “I am the black sheep, as it were.”

“And in mine I am the…hm. White wolf? Is that a thing?”

“I thought we had already established that I wasn’t open to you eating me, Dorian,” Trevelyan said sternly.

It was fun, making him laugh.

Trevelyan ended up buying Dorian a room in a nearby tavern.

Then he ended up handing over double the money to compensate for the absolute surety that it would be trashed tomorrow.

When his mother demanded to know what he’d done with the money Ravena had given him for shopping, he said he’d donated to a very charitable cause.

Unlike him she wasn’t a total idiot, and didn’t buy it.


	3. Val Royeaux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately the inspiration for this fic has pretty much dried right up, so I don't think the fourth chapter will ever see the light of day. But, this one was largely finished sitting in my drafts for quite some time, so I thought I'd let off some steam and finish it.

Somehow, Trevelyan felt free, much in the same sense that someone whose foot had gotten caught in a bear trap would feel free at hacking their limb off. It wasn’t as pleasant a sensation as he’d been hoping, even as an oppressive weight had lifted from his heart, and as he found himself idly wandering through Val Royeaux’s brightly painted and streamer-laden streets, he wondered if he should go back and apologize to his family, beg for forgiveness.

Hm.

No.

Grovel, don’t grovel. Apologize, don’t apologize. They would see him the same as they always had. They would welcome him back with scowls like they always had.

He sucked in a great breath, and then coughed it out as someone called out to him from above, from a building on the upper level. “If I didn’t know better I would think you’re stalking me.”

He glanced up. He knew the voice but name and face were escaping him—his mind was too rattled at present to recognize anything with any clarity. Just amorphous, simultaneous feelings of “good”, and, “oh no”. And by the time his eyes pinpointed the source of the voice, it had already gone inside a building. Trevelyan lingered for a moment before a man burst through a door to his right, grinning and greeting him like an old friend.

It took a minute to realize who he was looking at. “Dorian!”

Dorian frowned. “Did you not recognize me?”

“Well, you have a mustache.”

“Ah!” He twirled it proudly, the ends curling very precisely along his face as though they were drawn on with a tapered brush. “What do you think? Quite debonair, wouldn’t you say?”

“It’s just, you didn’t have one before.”

A bit of irritation started to twist Dorian’s beautiful face. “Yes, I grew it.”

“You grew it? When?”

“I was growing it in Antiva!”

“Really?” Trevelyan frowned and thought back through all of his memories of Dorian in Antiva. Nope. All clean shaven. “I don’t think I believe you. I think you snapped your fingers and conjured it up.”

“Good heavens, man, have you never seen someone grow facial hair before?”

“No.” While Dorian made a noise that was not unlike an angry horse, Trevelyan cocked his head to the side. “Did you enjoy the necropolis?”

“Haven’t been yet.”

“You haven’t been?”

“No.” He sighed dramatically, putting his hands on his hips and idly pacing in irritation. “What was supposed to be a light jaunt has turned into quite the trip. If I had known that Nevarra was this far out of my reach I might have picked a different destination.”

Trevelyan nodded with a sympathetic air, and then paused. “Except you must have… _passed through_ Nevarra to get here.”

Dorian scowled at him, new mustache quirking ever so delightfully with his mouth. “Are you doubting my navigational skills, friend?”

“I have been doubting everything, as of late.” Something seemed to lodge in Trevelyan’s throat. He coughed, but that did nothing for it. His mother’s words from their earlier argument came back to him, a little more sharply and clearly than before. “…Though primarily, myself.”

“Oh?” The pantomimed look of contempt of a man gazing upon his lesser vanished entirely, leaving Dorian’s face looking thoughtful and contrite in its wake. “I’m sorry to hear that. …You do seem a bit more…how shall I put this—simplistic, than usual? Like something’s eating you.”

“Something is eating me, yes.” Trevelyan tapped his breastbone, just slightly left. “Right here. Eating me right here. I’ll be hollow soon.”

“Hmmm…” He was positive he liked the look in Dorian’s eyes, but he was also positive he wouldn’t like what came out of his mouth next. “I think you could use a distraction.”

“A distraction?”

“Yes! That is what I do when the crushing despair and helplessness at changing my fate weighs upon me!” Dorian linked their arms together, waggling his brows. “I go distract myself.”

Trevelyan did not pull away. “Does it involve setting things on fire?”

“Ah, no. That was a one time thing.”

“Oh.” He was disappointed. Though only slightly.

Distracting oneself, it seemed, involved a great deal of distressing other people. Dorian began by snatching a pair of masks from a couple in the midst of great debate—upon which they both screamed and ran to hide their faces. He then passed one to Trevelyan, something delicate and silver, while Dorian took up the one inlaid with gold.

“I’ve made some new friends since my time here,” he explained, leading the pair of them closer to the market square, passed several Andrastian statues that would have stunned Trevelyan with their beauty were they not identical to ones he had long since tired of in his home estate. “And they have given me some marvelous tips on how to manage the locals. Watch and learn.”

And Trevelyan watched.

And he learned.

And then, half the square covered in bees and swapped market signs, a party pooper called the guards on them. Trevelyan felt a jolt when he saw them come around the corner, all blue fabric and gold metal. He was still technically here with his family. He wasn’t sure what kind of consequences would ensue getting _arrested_ performing what could only be described as “mischief”.

“Sweet Maker, would you just _look_ at their unifo—"

Dorian squawked a little as he was pulled along, his hands unbearably warm even through Trevelyan’s gloves.

It was too late to keep them from being noticed, but luckily the two of them, unencumbered as they were, were just a little faster than their pursuers.

Which must have been why the guards started throwing things at them.

“Of all the things you decide to use as a distraction.” Trevelyan ducked as a stone flew overhead, ruffling his hair with the displacement of air around it as it sailed by. “It’s barely been one hour with you. We could have done anything. You could have asked me to dance. Dancing is very distracting.”

Dorian snorted, pulling Trevelyan down a corner. “Dancing is for romantic saps in the trash novels my mother reads.”

Trevelyan couldn’t exactly argue with that. “Also less likely to result in us being arrested and or killed by angry guards with surprisingly tight pants.” He opened a door and the two of them slipped inside before they could be seen.

“Well, there is that, yes.”

Footsteps clattered on the other side of the door. After another couple of minutes of silence, Trevelyan ventured a glance outside and said, softly, “They’ve moved on. –The coast is clear.”

“There, you see?” Dorian strode back out onto the street, puffed up like a peacock. “Perfect escape.”

“I suppose we could have done worse than wear disguises when causing problems…” Trevelyan muttered as he followed him out, slipping the mask off his face and looking at it with a frown. “This one has a fake mustache on it.”

“And you can be assured that it looks perfectly ridiculous on you,” Dorian crowed, taking off his own mask and stroking his facial hair back into shape. “If we were kind people, we could go return these to their rightful owners.”

Rolling his eyes, Trevelyan took the mask from him and started away from the market. “Let’s find a place to dispose of these.”

As they hit a cross section, he idly glanced to his right. There prowling through the parallel street were another set of figures. They didn’t look Orlesian—frankly, he wasn’t sure _what_ they looked like, strange curling accents along their shoulders and hoods covering most of their heads. But whatever they were, their outfits were all noticeably identical.

And they were all armed.

“More guards,” Trevelyan noted idly to Dorian, a smile creeping on his face. “Look, these ones have even sillier uniforms.”

Dorian turned in the direction that he pointed. But he didn’t laugh like he had with the others. His face changed.

“I have to go.”

“What?”

“Come find me later,” he whispered into Trevelyan’s ear, crumpling a note scrawled with an address into his palm. Then he was gone. Oh—of course, chasing him would have been simplicity itself. But the words had carried a finality to them, and all he could do was stand there until the silly looking guards came his way, parting around him as though he were a stone in a river and paying him little more mind than that.

Trevelyan never actually made it home that day.

Instead of the guest suite at his fourth cousin’s estate that had been set aside for him and his family, he found a nice long box out by the docks that wasn’t totally unbearable to lay in. He climbed inside, pulled the tarp over himself, and went to sleep to the sound of gulls and waves.

Ultimately, it was one of the more restful nights he’d had.

He felt better, the next morning.

They didn’t send anyone out to find him, which maybe should have been depressing but really it was just a relief. He still had the note with Dorian’s address on it, folded up neatly in his pocket. He went out to find him first thing, because—well, because he was in the capital of the Orlesian Empire and he really couldn’t think of anything else he wanted to do more.

The address was somewhat difficult to locate. It was in a seedier neighborhood than he would have liked, just enough for him to stand out in his brighter, more expensive clothing. Perhaps he should have worn black. He liked black.

At first it appeared as though the place might be abandoned, and he had been misled. But then there was the crash of broken glass from somewhere in the back.

Trevelyan cautiously crept around, trying to keep himself contained amid some dead shrubbery that had probably been planted to make the place look nicer. The same men from yesterday were breaking into the building, smashing glass and kicking the door down. He frowned.

“Ah! Trevelyan!” A hand on his shoulder, squeezing with familiar pressure as it spun him around and pulled him into a stumbling jog, nearly stunning his heart into going silent forever. “So you arrive, timing impeccable as is usual.”

“—If you sneak up on me like that again I might try to punch you.”

“Key word being ‘try’.” Dorian was smiling but his expression was harried, glancing back to where his abode was currently being ransacked with noticeable worry that—frankly, it was bizarre to see there on his face. “I must warn you—if you indeed wish to join me on my outings today, you’ll be in for more grave peril.”

"Grave peril?” Trevelyan put a hand to his mouth, frowning. “Hm. I’m not sure I actually want the grave peril part. Do you think perhaps I could come by tomorrow when there’s less peril?”

“With any luck, I will not be here come tomorrow.” Dorian beckoned, and he obediently followed.

There was a clang, a shout, and the ambling pace changed to a sprint without warning. They ran through twisted alleys and side streets, through small shop fronts in out of the way little corners, until finally Dorian seemed to judge that they had run far enough, and he pulled Trevelyan down a little stairwell to press against the short wall in a crouch.

“Those men,” he explained, catching his breath, “were hired by my family. My father, specifically, I expect. They are here to take me back to Te—Te—” He fumbled for a moment before growling out, “ _Home._ ”

Mercenaries? Hired by his family? “Oh!” Trevelyan grew excited. “Is that why you grew the mustache? So they wouldn’t recognize you?”

It truly did transform his face. Made him look much more mature, pulled attention down to his extremely intriguing, scowling mouth instead of his expressive eyes.

“I grew the mustache because it is _sexy._ ”

Facial hair, sexy. All he could do was shrug. “I suppose.”

“You infuriating little—"

A guard leaned over the railing, his eyebrows raising as he caught sight of the two of them. Dorian let out a gasp and then tapped lightly along the railing’s metal surface. The man wailed in sudden pain, hand clenching over the metal as he pitched forward, jerking.

Trevelyan stared. “How did…?”

“—Static electricity, my dear boy. Come along, quickly now!”

These men were not like the Orlesian guards. No matter what path they took through the backstreets, they remained at their heels, though at some points growing farther away or closer depending on how easy it was for them to traverse. If Trevelyan trusted Dorian to be able to scale the architecture around them with any fluency he might have suggested climbing up to the city’s second level, but it seemed unlikely. Certainly not something to test mid-escape.

Eventually they hit an enclosed park with branching plants and cloyingly sweet flowers, and there was nowhere left to run. There were a few couples who looked up at them, startled, and one old man reading a book in the corner.

Dorian cursed in an unfamiliar language at the sight. “Perfect! Wonderful!”

“It’s the opposite of those things, I think.”

He turned to glare most bitterly before hissing out, “ Hide!”

“There _isn’t_ anywhere to— _mmf_!”

His protestations were muffled as Dorian shoved him into an alcove and mashed their mouths together, mustache tickling and scratching at his skin. Trevelyan’s arms wind-milled for a confused moment as he struggled both to process what was going on, and also whether or not those footsteps were getting closer.

Dorian rolled them both so that he was the one against the wall, blocked from view by Trevelyan’s body. The footsteps grew loud, and despite not being able to see it was clear that it was their pursuers. He could hear them speak under their helmets, voices dim and echoed, but couldn’t make out any of the words. They sounded like a foreign language.

Then the footsteps receded without incident, and Dorian pushed him aside carelessly.

“ _That_ ,” he said as he smoothed his mustache back to perfection, paying no heed to one of the other couples gawking at them, “Was _far_ too close for comfort.”

Trevelyan stared at him for a moment, dimly aware that he was now half laying on a broken statue plinth. He opened his mouth but it took a moment for words to come out. “You _kissed_ me.”

“That was _not_ a kiss,” Dorian snarled, sounding indignant as he looked down the street for any sign of their pursuers returning. He must not have liked what he saw, because his movements became more urgent again. “I can kiss _far_ better than _that_. That was merely a smoke screen.”

“I think you bruised my lip.” Dorian tried to pull him along, but he wouldn’t budge. “—You can’t just pounce on someone unexpectedly like that!”

“Oh for the love of—" He put his hands on Trevelyan’s back and gave him a hard shove towards the street. “—Before I leave town I will buy you an apology fruit basket now let’s _go!_ ”

A red kerchief fluttering in the wind was what stopped them, and Dorian pulled them both to a halt. “Ooh! Wait wait wait…” He peered up, pointing at the balcony to which it was tied. The building itself appeared empty. “Now, if I’m right about this, one of my new ‘friends’ should have a cache there—are you any good at climbing?”

Trevelyan didn’t need to answer. It wasn’t long before he was scrambling over that railing. The view of the city was better from here—there were many tall buildings in Val Royeaux, but the ones around here were short enough that he could see some of the other streets around them. Their pursuers were back at the little park, appearing to be questioning some of the other couples who had been there.

Tucked neatly under a beat up old chair sitting in the center of the balcony was a large, dusty box. He opened it.

A set of bow and arrows.

“Dorian,” he called down, “You said these are your father’s men, does that mean you’ll feel bad if—”

“They are going to _kidnap me_ into the most strict and Andrastian boarding school that ever existed,” Dorian snapped, hands clenching almost reflexively, light in his palms. “You may harm them at will!”

That was all the permission Trevelyan needed. As he had done many times before in his training at home, he took up the bow, notched back the arrow—took a moment to cringe at how different Orlesian craftsmanship was from Ostwick work—and let it fly.

He struck one of the guards right through the hood, and he went down with a _thud_ of crashing armor.

Given everything he’d seen and heard, he was expecting to feel pretty terrible about it.

He didn’t. He actually felt quite accomplished and buzzed.

Hm.

Before the others could react he sent another one flying. This arrow wasn’t a perfect headshot, unfortunately, though it was somewhat amusing to see the way it sort of lodged itself through the screaming man’s shoulder.

The others scattered, clearly not expecting anything more physically intense than capturing a wayward youth. They were shouting something at each other in urgent tones, weapons drawn as they retreated, but the important thing was that their hunt, it seemed, had been stopped for now.

Trevelyan leaned over to share his jubilation, this glowing moment of triumph, but the smile instantly dropped from his face.

Dorian was gone.

He was alone.

It didn’t take a lot of brainpower to locate him again, however. Trevelyan looked into all the carriages that were leaving town, and found Dorian loitering around outside one of their stables, glancing around at everyone who passed and…puffing fire in his hands when he thought no one was looking. Evidently he didn’t care much for Orlesian weather.

“You’re a mage,” he said simply in the way of greeting. “And those were Tevinter soldiers.”

Dorian responded with a high-pitched yelp, shoving his hands behind his back like a child trying to hide their theft from the cookie jar. Then he saw who was addressing him and relaxed, giving a great huff and rolling his eyes.

“Fine way of saying hello. …Evidently you are sharper than you act.” He straightened himself out, brushing nonexistent dust off of his clothing. “Alright fine, yes. The truth has been revealed. I’m not just your average everyday dashing scoundrel with perfectly waxed mustache and elegantly coiffed hair.” His chest puffed up. “I am Dorian of House Pavus out of Qarinus in Tevinter, the scion of a long line of skilled and distinguished Altus mages and fated to one day assume my father’s seat in the Magisterium. –You may gasp in shock now.”

Trevelyan blinked. “Oh.”

“… _Oh_?”

“Well, you could have said that from the start.”

“I could have--!?”

“So, are all the stories they say true?” He leaned in so close that in the second before Dorian pulled back, he looked briefly cross-eyed. “Country run by mages? Duels in the streets? Magic buildings?”

“You’re oversimplifying it all a tad, but basically those things are correct, yes.”

“And blood magic?”

He sighed. “Of course. Some houses do, yes. Albeit not as openly as you seem to think.”

“And what about your own family? Do they do blood magic?”

“ _My_ family?” Dorian started laughing, real and earnest guffaws that had him doubling over, almost in tears. When he was finally able to regain himself, he said, “My family is the most boringly upright clan in all of Tevinter, and my father is the worst of the lot. He _hates_ blood magic. Says it is the product of poor breeding and a weak mind. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t rail against it.” Dorian sniffed, waving a hand. “No, he’s far too concerned with being utterly above reproach to do or allow anything quite that interesting.”

Trevelyan thought of his own parents, his own father, kneeling at the Chantry’s feet for praise and smacking his knuckles for speaking out of turn. “Sounds familiar.”

“Don’t be so shocked. We’re a lot like you, in Tevinter. –Except better in every possible way.”

The sound of rolling wheels and the _clop clop clop_ of horse hooves became audible.

Dorian’s voice dropped as he spoke. “And…perhaps a bit worse, too. --This is my carriage, unfortunately.”

Trevelyan’s heart gave a sudden thump, and he found himself saying, “You sure you can’t stay another night? It feels as though I am always meeting you right when you’re leaving.”

“Such is the way of the world. I dare not stay here much longer now that I’ve been found out.” Then his hands were cupping Trevelyan’s face, and before he could stop him Dorian planted a soft kiss on each cheek. “It’s been a pleasure, truly. I know I have been a relentless cad, but you are one of a kind, erm—” He paused. “It occurs to me you have never actually told me your first name.”

Dorian’s hands were still on his face. They were warm and just a little bit calloused, and Trevelyan thought briefly, embarrassed, of the kiss that had been foisted on him earlier, and how he actually kind of wanted a second one now. “…Alexiel,” he replied softly.

“Alexiel.” Dorian smiled, and that smile was so positively beautiful that it very nearly killed him. “Do look me up if you ever happen to be in Nevarra. We could go…oh, see the reanimated corpses together. Whatever it is you do for fun when I’m not getting you into trouble.”

 _I have no fun when you’re not getting me into trouble_ is what he meant to say, but all that came out was, “I would like that. The corpses, I mean.”

“Splendid.” The warmth of his fingers was gone in an instant, and with a final wave Dorian climbed onto the carriage. Trevelyan watched until it had pulled into the distance, feeling distantly hollow and yet oddly liberated at the same time.

Let it also be noted that at no time afterward did he receive an apology fruit basket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me I haven't actually given a spot in the timeline for all this--it's supposed to be shortly after Dorian was sent to the Order of Argent in his late teens (around 19-20 if I recall correctly), and shortly before he becomes Alexius' apprentice.

**Author's Note:**

> While this is intended to be four chapters long, I’ve written it like a series of self-contained episodes. That way, if I don’t finish the other planned/partially written chapters I won’t be kicking myself forever.


End file.
